The present invention generally relates to hearing aids and, more particularly, to hearing aids of the self-contained type.
Over the past few years, there has been a rapidly growing demand for self-contained hearing aids, i.e., in-the-ear and canal aids. In particular, canal aids have grown in popularity in large measure because of cosmetic appeal since canal aids are barely visible when worn. In fact, experience has shown that canal aids are popular regardless of age, sex or socioeconomic considerations.
Unfortunately, while the cosmetic appeal is self-evident, the technological problems of providing a high-quality device have proven to be quite formidable. Despite the problems, however, the quality of canal aids has advanced faster than that of any type of product in the history of the hearing aid industry. Nevertheless, the technological problems still must be overcome if canal aids are to achieve a level of performance that is fully satisfactory.
Due to the obvious size constraints in canal aids, the operational components must be quite miniaturized. The growth of miniaturized electronic components has largely met this demand, but the mechanical components such as the battery access and volume control have oftentimes been inadvertently damaged by the wearer due to the lack of sufficient structural support. As a result, these components can be damaged or destroyed in normal use resulting in unnecessary inconvenience and customer complaints.
In particular, the volume control in most canal aids is disposed in a plane which extends perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the ear canal of the wearer. This type of volume control has caused problems because, when the wearer attempts to adjust the volume, the canal aid may inadvertently be lodged dangerously deep in the ear canal by reason of the fact that the wearer's finger bears against the end of the canal aid and must necessarily apply some force to the volume control in order to adjust the volume. To overcome this problem, manufacturers have attempted to limit the amount of force required to rotate the control for volume adjustment.
Unfortunately, in order to reduce the force required to adjust the volume, the volume control mounting has been made less substantial. This, in turn, has resulted in the volume control being easily damaged by the wearer, and it has also been found that reduction of the resistances to rotation of the volume control has not significantly reduced the incidents of lodging the canal aid dangerously deep in the ear canal since this is easily done with conventional canal aids regardless of the ease with which the volume control can be rotated. As a result, it has remained to provide a self-contained hearing aid that overcomes the problems in a fully satisfactory manner.